"Pshaw, that's old," declared Tom with brotherly curtness.
"It wasn't done behind a sheet. That's the old way—"
"A mighty good way, too," supported James stoutly. "I've seen some splendid pantomimes done on a sheet—'Red Riding Hood' and 'Jack the Giant Killer,' and a lot more."
"This is much cunninger," insisted Della. "Instead of a sheet there's a dull, light blue curtain hung across the stage. The light is behind it, but the actors are in front of it."
"Then you don't see their shadows."
"You see themselves in silhouette against the blue. There is a net curtain down between them and the audience and it looks like moonlight with elves and fairies playing in it."
"It would be hard to train Dicky to be a fairy," decided Ethel Blue so gravely that all the others laughed.
"I was thinking that it would be fun to have Dicky and some other children dressed like pussy cats and rabbits and dogs, and playing about as if they were frisking in the moonlight."
"Why not have them do a regular little play like 'Flossy Fisher's Funnies' that have been coming out in the Ladies' Home Journal?" screamed Ethel Brown, electrified at the growth of the idea. "Take almost any one of them and get the children to play the little story it tells and I don't see why it wouldn't be too cunning for words."
"What kind of stories?" asked James who liked to understand.